The lyrics to this song are powerful.  I have a feeling the words might apply to your life just as they apply to mine…

I look around and see my wonderful life
Almost perfect from the outside
In picture frames I see my beautiful wife
Always smiling
But on the inside, I can hear her saying…

“Lead me with strong hands
Stand up when I can’t
Don’t leave me hungry for love
Chasing dreams, what about us?

Show me you’re willing to fight
That I’m still the love of your life
I know we call this our home
But I still feel alone”

I see their faces, look in their innocent eyes
They’re just children from the outside
I’m working hard, I tell myself they’ll be fine
They’re independent
But on the inside, I can hear them saying…

“Lead me with strong hands
Stand up when I can’t
Don’t leave me hungry for love
Chasing dreams, but what about us?

Show me you’re willing to fight
That I’m still the love of your life
I know we call this our home
But I still feel alone”

So Father, give me the strength
To be everything I’m called to be
Oh, Father, show me the way
To lead them
Won’t You lead me?

To lead them with strong hands
To stand up when they can’t
Don’t want to leave them hungry for love,
Chasing things that I could give up

I’ll show them I’m willing to fight
And give them the best of my life
So we can call this our home
Lead me, ’cause I can’t do this alone

Father, lead me, ’cause I can’t do this alone

by Sancuts Real
courtesy of eLyrics.net

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My friend & colleague, Jill Konrath, just came out with a new book to address this key issue. It’s called: “SNAP Selling: Speed Up Sales and Win More Business with Today’s Frazzled Customers.”

I highly recommend it. It’s already soared to the #1 Amazon sales book!

Here is an excerpt from the book…

Make Decisions Easier for Your Prospects

By Jill Konrath, author of SNAP Selling and Selling to Big Companies

Crazy-busy prospects can’t handle complexity. They hate it when things are difficult to decode, decide or decifer. It grinds them to a screeching halt – which is the normal human reaction to being overwhelmed and stressed out.

Because of the chaotic business environments we work in, simplicity has recently emerged as a key factor in sales success.

As a seller, your job is to make things easier and minimize the effort for your frazzled prospects. This is especially true when you’re dealing with people who seldom make decisions like the one you’re proposing.

Here are some strategies you can use to make things easier for your frazzled prospects.

Augment, Don’t Replace

Your prospects already use something or someone to address their needs. You can make it a whole lot easier for them to get buy-in for your product or service by positioning it as an “add on” to an existing program, process, or technology.

For example, when I talk to VPs of Sales, I always stress that my workshops on selling to crazy-busy buyers or cracking into new accounts compliment their existing sales training initiatives. I even assure them that I’ll tie my strategies in with their current methodology.

By coexisting with the status quo, you can get your foot in the door without encountering a major battle. Once you’re in, you can work to expand your relationship and win additional business.

Sometimes your “competitors” are internal staff whose number one concern is job loss. I knew this was going to be a major obstacle recently when I proposed a new idea to a prospect. So I dealt with it head on.

First I showed them how we could bring much-needed services to an underserved customer demographic. They loved it. Then, I talked about leveraging outside resources to “jump-start” the new program. And, I clearly stated that the ultimate goal was to turn it over to their IT as soon as possible.

Not only did I avoid an insurrection, but I quickly got their support because it provided them with more job security. Augmentation is good. It simplifies and speeds up the decision process.

Think and Act Small

If your prospects like what you’ve proposed, they’ll want to get it approved as soon as possible. However, big ideas with big budgets are riskier and require more buy-in.

As a result, they’re harder to get through the system. When you start losing momentum, your whole proposal is at risk.

So even if you have a big idea, be realistic with your prospects. Talk about starting small. Show them how you can get started, demonstrate your success, and build from there. For example, you could:

• Propose an initial assessment to understand the scope of the problem.
• Tackle a small problem where you could demonstrate immediate short-term results.
• Focus on bringing in just one of your products, services, or solutions.
• Suggest a change in only one of the departments or a single facility.

IT seller P. V. Bhaskar frequently proposes pilot projects to his clients. With a 90 percent conversion rate, they’ve become his secret weapon to simplify the decision-making process.

Prior to getting started, he allows the CIO and CFO to set the success parameters. As he says, “When a pilot exceeds the incumbent’s performance, all I need to do is demonstrate that the success can be scaled to an actual project as well.”

Going for the whole shebang at once makes things more difficult. And when you’re working with frazzled customers, that’s a setup for having your opportunity get derailed, delayed or dismissed forever.

But once you get your foot in the door, the hardest part is over. If you do a good job on your initial piece of business, it will be logical for your prospect to move to the next stage with your company. Your next proposal simply augments what they’re already doing.

Root Out All Complexity

In many cases, your prospects don’t know what to look for or how to decide. If things get complicated, they’ll quit and you’ll be gonzo.

That’s why it’s imperative for you and your company to ask these questions all the time:

• At which point do our prospects tip into overwhelm?
• What are the complexities that grind decisions to a halt?
• How can we reduce the ease and effort needed to make a decision?
• In what ways can we minimize decision-making risk?

Discuss these questions with your colleagues. Observe what happens in conversations with your prospects. Talk to your existing customers to get their feedback.

Then eliminate as much complexity as is humanly possible.

If you don’t, it can easily become a major showstopper – which is not a desirable outcome. When you embrace the first SNAP Rule: Keep it Simple, you’ll win more business with a whole lot less effort.
—-

Want to learn more about the new rules of selling to crazy-busy prospects?

Go to www.snapselling.com. You can download 2 chapters of her book AND get these invaluable sales resources – for free:

•  SNAP Selling audio on the new rules of selling

•  Value Proposition Generator

•  9 Tips to Get Prospects to Call You Back

•  Buyer’s Matrix (great tool!)

… or you can contact Jill directly at jill@snapselling.com

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1.  Take a Vacation – Why do we always feel guilty about taking a vacation?  Most of us have gone years without taking a full week of vacation.  That’s part of the reason for burnout.

2.  Get Some Sleep – Lack of sleep turns into fatigue, sluggishness, and headaches.  Why put yourself through that?  Get at least seven hours of sleep every night this week and see how it affects you mentally and emotionally.

3.  Eat Healthy - It’s easy to get frustrated and irritable because of the way we look and feel.  My dad is a former college football coach.  I used to love being in the locker room before the game.  One of his running backs used to primp in front of the mirror before hitting the field.  I remember him saying, “You look good, you feel good, you play good…”  It’s funny… but it’s true!

4.  Exercise – This one closely resembles to the last tip.  You look good, you feel good, you…

5.  Try Something New - Have you ever had something you’ve always wanted to do, but never got the chance?  Go do it!

6.  Strengthen Relationships – There are people who love you.  Go spend time with them.  Don’t think about anything but strengthening your relationship with them.  Enjoy the time.  Embrace the process.

7.  Take Some “Me” Time – We all need people, but we also need some time for ourselves.  My wife is one of those who feels guilty for needing some “me” time.  If you are like her and you give… and give… and give… it’s important to allow yourself to give a little time… to yourself.

8.  Simplify – How complicated is your life and your work.  Is it self-imposed?  Look at everything that you are doing and get rid of the things that don’t add value.

9.  Have Fun – We’ve heard motivational speakers discourage us from wasting our time watching TV, playing video games, and other mindless activities.  Maybe it’s OK to be mindless when we are “resting.”  If you enjoy doing those things… then go ahead… RELAX… have some fun!

10.  Get Some Wins – Do all of these things to keep yourself mentally and physically refreshed… you know you are unstoppable when you are sharp… and winning is the best way to burn down burnout!

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2.  What ARE YOU UNWILLING to do to achieve greatness?

3.  What things do you KNOW YOU MUST do to achieve greatness?

How does your response to question 3 apply to your answers to questions 1 and 2?

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I read a true story about a pessimistic railroad engineer who was let out of work early along with his coworkers.  In the process of shutting down, he accidentally locked himself in a refrigerator car.  Knowing his coworkers were leaving for the day and realizing the dangers of being trapped in freezing temperatures all night, the engineer began to panic!  He yelled for help and banged on the door, but no one could hear him.  Eventually, the engineer accepted his fate and “froze” to death.  The next morning when the police examined the scene, they noticed something peculiar: the refrigerator car was not running, and the temperature never dipped below 60 degrees the entire night.¹ In essence, the engineer willed himself to death.

Our mind determines our outcomes.

If the man in the story was able to convince his body he was freezing to death, imagine what our mind can do to help us succeed!

What is your mind doing for you?

Are you believing the best for yourself?  Or, are you fostering a pattern of personal failures and negative thoughts?

Success builds from within…

You are your biggest advocate… your greatest champion!  Crush the naysayer keeping you from achieving your goals.  Don’t let outside distractions diminish your vision.  Don’t settle for just enough.  Expect over and above what is expected of you.

Within each of us exists two mindsets…

…each producing drastically different outcomes.  Which one do you choose to believe?  Once you decide what you really want… a dream becomes a vision… becomes a goal… becomes YOUR reality.

Go get it!

Ryan Collins is a top performing Business Development Specialist for Kaplan University based out of Dallas, TX.  Collins has written for a number of national publications, including American Way Magazine and Comcast’s Connected Living.  Email Collins at r.collins.1@netzero.net for questions or comments regarding this article.

1 Osteen, J. Your Best Life Now.  August, 2007

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John, a sales representative from Los Angeles wrote us with this question, “After my last ride along with my sales manager he told me that I needed to work on building better rapport with my prospect. Do you have any advice in this area?”

Rapport is a popular and ubiquitous concept in sales. A module on rapport is included in virtually every sales and leadership training course. You’ll find chapters on rapport in almost every sales book. Many thousands of books and seminars are dedicated exclusively to the concept of rapport. A search on Google for how to build rapport yields a million or so returns. Despite all of this, rapport is among the most misunderstood and misapplied concepts in business. Ask 10 salespeople to explain rapport and you’ll get 10 different answers. Few people really understand the concept of rapport.

Rapport is essentially being in sync with another person to the extent that you are able to influence their behavior. The rapport building process is designed to develop common ground with another person through mirroring and matching body language, voice tone and speed, word patterns, eye movement, and even breathing. In time, according to the experts, when you truly have rapport with another, you have the ability to lead them and change their behavior patterns.

The problem with rapport is that it is just too hard and complex to get into sync with someone enough to influence their behaviors.  Few sales professionals have the time or inclination to become experts in deciphering word patterns, eye movements, and facial expressions. Learning to effectively and discretely mirror and match people based on their communication style—audio, visual or kinesthetic— sounds really cool in a seminar, but it rarely succeeds consistently in real world business situations with real people. This results in rapport building being awkward, cheesy, and manipulative. Making matters worse are the legions of salespeople who mistake small talk at the beginning of a sales call as rapport building. Taking their cue from misinformed sales trainers, they’ll make dumb comments about some random object in their prospect’s office as if that is enough to initiate a relationship. Far too many sales people just go through the motions to check Build Rapport off their sales-process list so they can get down to selling.

Buyers are not fooled. They find these lame attempts at rapport-building gratuitous and insincere. Over time, they become numb to rapport-building efforts.  If you want people to buy you, forget about rapport. Remove the word from your vocabulary. Instead, focus on connecting.

Rapport is designed, not to develop trusting relationships, but rather to influence behavior. Rapport in its purest form is manipulative. People who feel manipulated will be distrustful of your motivations, no matter how pure, and will never feel connected to you. Connecting, on the other hand, is designed to win others over through a focus on their needs. The most effective strategy for winning others over (convincing them that you are their friend) is to start and end by helping them get what they want.

Stop Trying to Build Rapport and Learn How Listen

The most insatiable human desire, our deepest craving is the desire to feel valued, appreciated, and important. The key to connecting and winning others over is, therefore, extremely simple: make them feel important. The real secret to making others feel important is something you have at your disposal right now. It’s listening. Listening is powerful.  The more you listen, the more connected others will feel to you. When you listen, you make people feel important, respected, and heard.

Unfortunately, most salespeople would rather talk than listen.  Why? Because we would rather think about and talk about ourselves, our products and services, our accomplishments, and our problems.   The vast majority of people, especially salespeople, never make the effort to sincerely listen to others.  Much of the time when they are not talking they are thinking about what they are going to say next.

There is real power in listening and using it to your advantage to build connections. The desire to feel important, valued, and appreciated is more insatiable than any other human craving. Just like you, when people talk about themselves and someone listens, it makes them feel important and subsequently draws them to you. Although truly listening to another person requires self-discipline, selflessness, practice, and patience, it is not complicated or complex. That is the beauty of connecting. Unlike the complexity of rapport, connecting requires only that you listen to your prospect, customer, client, boss, or peer.

You can learn more about building stronger relationships with your prospects and customer in my new book People Buy You – The Real Secret to What Matters Most in Business

Jeb Blount is the CEO of SalesGravy.com, the most visited sales website on the internet. A respected thought leader on sales and sales leadership, he is author of three books, People Buy You: The Real Secret to what Matters Most in Business, Sales Guy’s 7 Rules for Outselling the Recession, and Power Principles. He is the author of more than 100 articles on sales and sales leadership and the host of the top rated Sales Guy Podcast. For more information on Jeb and his new book People Buy You visit www.PeopleBuyYou.com.

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Dad Life from Church on the Move on Vimeo.

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Sometimes I question myself… thinking, “You’ve got to work harder to be a better dad.”

My wife and kids always find the perfect way to put things in perspective.

My girls gave me this list of 100 Reasons Why We Love You Daddy!  It’s funny… some of them are repeats, but I share all of them with you because I know many of these apply to you also.

It’s the little things that make a big difference.  We don’t have to be perfect, we just have to be Daddy.

100 Reasons Why We Love You Daddy!

1. You make delicious pancakes

2. You take us to GattiTown

3. You gave us marshmallow treats

4. You gave us sweet things on our birthday

5. You love us so much

6. Because it’s almost Father’s Day

7. You wrestle with us

8. You let us get on your shoulders

9. You tickle us

10. You laugh when we tickle you

11. You came to Donuts with Daddy day

12. You let us sleep with you sometimes

13. You play with us at bounce houses

14. You share your food with us

15. You say good morning every day

16. You give us hugs and kisses

17. You play outside with us

18. You let us hang on the tree

19. You go bike riding with us

20. You say our bedtime prayers with us

21. You play with us

22. You take us to movies

23. You go to work and work hard for us

24. You love pizza

25. You gives us kisses and hugs

26. You tell us how much you love us

27. You take us to the park

28. You takes us to the Fun Club

29. You show us how to use the computer

30. You laugh when we tickle you

31. You honk at us when you get home from work

32. You play games with us outside

33. When you go out of town for work, you bring us treats

34. You take us to Cici’s for pizza.

35. You are nice to our Mommy

36. You laugh at our jokes

37. You play hide and seek with us

38. You play Barbies with us

39. You let us watch fun movies

40. You teach us interesting things

41. You take care of us when Mommy has grown up meetings

42. You let us pick out our own snacks

43. You videotape our special events

44. You explain big words to us

45. You keep us safe

46. You help us buckle our seat belts

47. You always tell us how cute we are

48. You play catch with us

49. You play soccer with us

50. You teach us running skills

51. You make time for us, even when you are tired

52. You let us play video games with you

53. You come to school events and parties

54. You are nice to our friends

55. You help us learn how to ride our bikes

56. You take us camping even when you don’t like it very much

57. You cheer for us when we potty train

58. You treat us like princesses.

59. You let us eat peanut butter on a spoon.

60. You let us ride the horses at La Ha.

61. You love Mattito’s and like to take us there

62. You encourage us to try new foods

63. You tell people how wonderful we are

64. You make sure we talk to our grandparents

65. You share your dessert with us

66. You love to take us to Double Dip

67. You watch us when we do cool tricks

68. You show us boy movies, like Toy Story and Spiderman

69. You always ask us how are day went

70. When you kiss us so much that our cheeks get whisker burns.

71. When you let us have bedtime snacks.

72. When you always drive for us ladies around.

73. Because you work so hard so Mommy can stay home with us.

74. You teach us about sports and the rules.

75. Because you are handsome.

76. Because you are funny and always telling funny stories.

77. When you tell us about your co-workers.

78. Because you teach us to be kind and loving to each other.

79. We love you so much.

80. When you encourage us to pray.

81. Because you are patient with us.

82. Because you like to be silly.

83. You watch us when Mommy goes to Bunco.

84. You treat us like little ladies.

85. You like it when we walk you out for work.

86. You come to our birthday parties.

87. You help us change our bed when we go have an accident.

88. You don’t get mad at us when we have an accident in our beds.

89. You always tell us how pretty we are.

90. You take us to the bookstore.

91. You let us pick out our own snacks.

92. You are patient with us at bedtime, even when we won’t stay in our bed.

93. You let us stay at a hotel.

94. You love our Mommy.

95. You are nice to our friends.

96. You gave us a pretty house to live in.

97. You take us to the best church ever.

98. You teach us about Jesus.

99. You say lots of nice things about us.

100. Because we wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you!!!

Love you Daddy!!!

Happy Father’s Day to the best Daddy ever!

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References – What… references can slow down my sales cycle?

References are a great tool, but you have to be strategic about using them only when you need them to gain the advantage.  Don’t put yourself in a situation where the buyer is on the verge of making a “yes” decision and suddenly, instead of asking for the business, you offer to give them references.

They didn’t need references!  Now you are in a position where you follow-up a day or two later and they say, “I’ve been so busy, I haven’t had time to check on your references.  Can you call me again next week?”

Unbelievable… You could have picked up the paperwork yesterday, but you had to go and offer them references.

It’s kinda funny when you think about it…

FREE Trial – Again, FREE Trials are great when you are trying to capture leads and generate interest… but not great when you are trying to close the deal!

The prospect affirms you are the front runner and tells you they are going to have a decision by the end of the week, and for some reason you decide, “I’m going to give you a private login so you can go poke around in the product.”

Great idea… right?  You hope they get in there… love it all the more… and call you tomorrow with the big “YES!”  Uh-uh… it doesn’t quite happen that way.

Instead they login, poke around for about 15 minutes, and get too busy to ever login again.  When you follow up… you guessed it, “I haven’t had time to play around with the product… Can you call me next week?”

…another one of those learning moments.

More Information – “OK… so what I’m going to do is send you some more information to help you make the decision.”

I’m not even going to address this one.

Last Minute Discounts (Bonus Tip) – Discounting doesn’t slow down your sales cycle but it slows down your push to exceed quota.  Your new client is signing the paperwork… they have no objections about price, and you say, “By the way, I’m going to go ahead and offer you ABC discount.”  Everybody’s happy… why change the terms?!!!

What other “silly sales cycle slow downs” (say that 10 times fast) would you add to this list?

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Disciplinary action taken on attendance issues doesn’t solve the core issues… engagement, buy-in, productivity, etc. Just because they are physically there doesn’t mean they are mentally there.

It’s about Return On Effort (ROE). If your sales reps feel like their ROE is low, then guess what? You’ll have an activity problem… you’ll have an attendance problem… and you’ll end up with a turnover problem.

Don’t be a task master… Be a sales mentor! Task masters walk around pushing activities. Sales mentors teach strategies and techniques that produce immediate results!

If a sales person is failing, the answer does not come from pushing them to do more of the same activities that aren’t working!

Higher activity levels produce greater results when you are engaged in the right activities. Then it becomes a question of sustainability… and that sustainability is directly related to ROE.

Long-term success comes through an ability to pinpoint sales behaviors that need tweaking. Check out this Art Sobczak’s video on Smart Calling (amazon affiliate link)…

When you develop your people and teach them techniques that significantly increase ROE, you don’t have to worry about activity and attendance. Successful sales people work harder, arrive early, and stay late. Nothing solves problems faster… than winning!

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